by Meg Jackson
“Won’t the cheese go bad?” Tricia asked.
“I heard a rumor once that cheese gets better with age,” he answered with a wink.
“You know, you’re not exactly the sort of guy that I’d imagine being a connoisseur of cheeses,” Tricia mused, looking out the window again.
“There’s an art to it,” he said. “Subtlety. It takes concentration, being able to pick out different notes and flavors…”
Tricia turned to him with an eyebrow cocked.
“I’m serious,” he said, amused by her disbelief. “The difference between a Fontina and a Berner Alpkäse is a matter of molecules, and time, and diet. All little things that make a big difference. And one Fontina is different than another. You can tell what the cows ate, and when, and at what elevation. It’s a science, an artful science.”
Tricia smiled at him then, but didn’t respond.
“What?” he asked, laughing lightly. “Think that’s not very manly?”
“No,” she said. “It’s just not something I ever thought about. All I know about cheese is that if you hand me a block of it, there’s a good chance you won’t get it back.”
“Well, cheese also has opioid properties,” he said. “I guess that could contribute to my interest in it.”
Tricia hummed, looking away. Damon noticed how her hands shifted slightly, moving against each other, in her lap.
“Fighting’s a science too, isn’t it? An artful science,” Tricia said, voice low. Damon’s knuckles tightened around the steering wheel, which only made the old scars and new wounds stand out more. She sighed. “Sorry. I don’t know why I said that. I guess I just...it’s hard to imagine you discussing flavor notes one day and entering a ring the next.”
He didn’t need to ask how she knew about his fighting career. Even if she wasn’t best friends with Ricky and Kim, who probably mentioned it, his body contained the story for anyone who wanted to read it.
“Yes,” he finally said. “It’s another art. A more physical one. Fighting’s about attention, focus. You have to see everything in a few moments. Where his hips are, which hand he favors, whether he shifts on his left or his right foot. And you have to train your body to react in kind, no matter what his strength is, no matter what your weakness is.”
“Ah,” Tricia said, but didn’t elaborate. He studied her in quick glances, keeping his attention on the road. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t offended. She was thoughtful. He relaxed.
“I don’t know much about any art,” she finally said. “I’ve always been more inclined to math. Logic. Computers and stuff. I like working in libraries because there’s such order to everything, everything has a place. It’s a numbers game. A book is broken down to its most basic and necessary parts, then catalogued precisely. The world is so full of knowledge, it’s overwhelming. A library makes all that knowledge simple, immediate and knowable. Even a book of poetry gets turned into numbers.”
“Math is art,” Damon said. “It’s a language. It’s a different sort of poetry. It’s philosophy with numbers instead of words.”
“I suppose so,” Tricia said.
“You could create a physics of fighting. You could write a formula for Fontina. A poem can be broken down to symmetry and chaos, playing against each other. Nothing is separate. Everything is art, in its own way.”
Tricia turned to him again, a smile playing on her lips.
“You always talk like that, don’t you?” she asked, not quite teasing.
“One of my worst traits, I’ll admit,” he said. “Hope it doesn’t make you want to jump out of the car while it’s still moving.”
“No,” she said. “I like it. It’s…”
“Kind of funny, right?” he finished for her, flashing her another smile.
“No, no, not funny…” she said, blushing as though she’d insulted him.
“It is. I admit it, I sound like a bad indie film sometimes. I really don’t take myself as seriously as it seems.”
Now, her brow furrowed.
“No, really, I don’t think it’s that funny,” she said. “I mean, sometimes, I guess, you sound a little…odd. But you just…you think before you say things. Not everyone does that. It’s…it’s refreshing.”
“Well, I’m going to remind you that you said that in three days, when you’re ready to put duct tape over my mouth,” he said, trying to keep the mood light. Tricia chuckled and shook her head.
“Alright, big guy,” she said. “I’ll take your word for it. But for now, don’t dumb yourself down. Not for my sake.”
They settled back into silence while Tricia put a new CD on.
“Your DJ trial period is going very well,” Damon said as Hank William’s soulful, plaintive voice came through the speakers.
“Told ya so,” Tricia said, preening slightly. She sighed and rolled her shoulders, shrinking back down into her seat while the abstract landscape continued its sweeping retreat. She hoped Damon believed her when she said that she liked his high-minded way of speaking.
She’d had enough of men, and women, who wanted to skim the surface until they hit land. Damon treated life like a deep sea diver, his mind moving through a world that was quiet and intense, beautifully and frighteningly fluid. Maybe it was her near-death experience. Maybe it was something that had always been inside her. Whatever it was, Tricia wanted to do more than dip her toes in that world. She wanted to be submerged.
As silence settled between them again, Damon stole quick glances at her. He had a question of his own to ask her, one that he knew wouldn’t go down easy. But he needed the answer. He would never be able to move forward with her without it. He knew he ought to ask it sooner rather than later.
But he had a lot of driving yet to do that night, and he thought that for now, later would have to do. But he promised himself he’d ask by the end of the night. Before they went to sleep in their separate sleeping bags, under the same sky, he’d ask. He just hoped her answer would make things easier, instead of harder. The world was hard enough already.
10
Four hours got them to Richmond, Virginia, where they found a KOA campground off the highway. They lucked out and found a campsite far from the huge RVs and campers.
Tricia set up the tent while Damon found kindling for a fire and pulled some store-bought firewood from the trunk. As the fire built and began to crackle, they sat on a sanded-down log that served as a bench near the fire put.
“Tricia,” Damon said, his voice low in the night. “I need to ask you something.”
“Okay,” Tricia said, feeling a sort of radiating unease.
“It’s not a polite question,” he said, words stilted. “Or a pleasant one.”
“Okay,” she said again, rising from the log and picking up a stick to poke at the flames.
“I want to get it out of the way now,” he said. “Because we have a long drive ahead of us, and I don’t want it lingering.”
“Fine,” Tricia said, hearing the impatience in her own voice.
“Do you blame me? Resent me? Us?”
Tricia looked at him from the far side of the fire, face blank.
“For what happened,” he said. “It was our fault. We were the ones they were after, and we…”
“No,” Tricia said, cutting him off before he could continue the unneeded explanation. She turned to look down at the fire, lifted and dropped a red-sewn log. “I don’t blame you.”
It was true. She didn’t. Perhaps, sometimes, in her darkest moments, she did. Those times, she blamed everyone. But not for a long time had she felt resentment or anger towards Damon and his brothers. They were not responsible for anyone’s actions but their own. And even if they had, unwittingly, created the circumstance in which she became a victim, they were also the ones who saved her.
“Good,” Damon said. “That’s settled then.”
She eyed him.
“What would you have done – or said – if I said yes? If I said that I did blame you?” she asked. The
question was so pointed she almost felt like she cut her mouth asking it. He didn’t return her gaze.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I suppose I would have apologized. And tried to…make it up to you. I don’t suppose there would have been any way for me to do that, but…”
A horrible thought ran through Tricia’s head. He’d only brought her because he felt bad. He thought she blamed him. He wanted to “make it up to her”. He didn’t like her. He didn’t want her company. He wanted to ease his burden of guilt.
“Do you feel guilty?” she asked, trying to keep the clip from her tone – and failing.
“Not really,” he said, giving her a questioning glance. “I mean – of course, yes, I do. I feel guilt about…lots of things. But I’ve made peace with that guilt. It’s not going anywhere. I can’t change the past. I can’t make it so they never touched you. I can’t un-kill that man.”
The words dropped flat, eaten up by the roaring fire. So many things unspoken between them. Things that could have stayed unspoken for a long time. But that was Damon. And that was what attracted her to him. He wouldn’t live with the unspoken things. He would say the things no one else would.
“I’ve thought a lot about you,” she said carefully. “And that.”
“I’m not the sort of man who will take a life and not pay for it,” he said. He looked up at her again. “But I would do it again.”
“Oh,” she said, trying to press away the bad thoughts that had assailed her and wouldn’t leave. He did feel guilty. He brought her along to make himself feel better. It had nothing to do with her, who she was…
“Damon,” Tricia said, poking her stick into the fire to shift a sparking branch. “What are we doing?”
The question was heavy, lay between them, unmovable.
“We're going to Miami,” he said, voice flat. She shot him a look, her face half-lit in red by the fire. She looked lovely like that. His fists clenched. So selfish, he thought. So, so selfish.
“I know that,” she said, frustrated. “You know what I mean. How did you get me to say yes? I mean, I don't even know why you're going to Miami.”
“Business,” he said, cringing when she turned away. He wasn't being fair to her, not at all. Her groan confirmed it. She left the stick leaning against the stone circle and plopped back down on the log beside him.
“You were more talkative before,” she observed. “When you were trying to convince me to come.”
“I know,” he said through gritted teeth. “What I have to do is...complicated. And I told you why I wanted you to come. I like you. I feel like there's something between us.”
She sighed, stretched her legs out.
“I know,” she said, shaking her head. “I just keep thinking, how crazy am I being? I mean, I must not really be over anything if...”
Her voice trailed off and she buried her head in her hands. She had made a pretty serious habit of never saying she wasn't “over it”.
“Who expects you to be over it?” Damon asked.
“Myself,” she said, speaking into her own palms.
“Well,” he said, pausing for effect, “stop.”
“Okay,” Tricia said, laughing slightly. “Okay, Damon, I'll stop.”
“I don't expect you to be over it,” he said. “So for now...for this trip...don't try to be.”
Tricia didn't respond, but she dropped her hands, revealing her face to the flames. After a long moment, she spoke again, her voice strong.
“I'm doing really well,” she said. “I am. Almost all my days are good days. I don't want you thinking of me like I'm some lost kitten you have to take care of.”
“I don't,” Damon said, and he reached over, placing his hand on her thigh. “But I kind of like the idea of you as a kitten...”
Tricia turned to him, mouth dropping open in a dumbfounded gape. What had he just said? And what was that smile on his face? He took his hand away, and Tricia felt unnaturally disappointed about it. And then she started laughing. A big, hearty laugh that filled the woods around them with its noise.
“Are you serious?” she managed to speak between gasps of much-needed air. “Damon, you are...oh my God, was that supposed to seduce me? That was the worst, the worst...”
He kept laughing with her, but now he leaned back, relaxing as the sound of her happiness swarmed him. When it died down, he was still smiling.
“I wasn't trying to seduce you,” he said, shaking his head as he looked into the fire.
“Oh no?” Tricia said, wiping tears from her cheeks. He thought he might have heard some disappointment in her voice. He might have imagined it, too.
“I just wanted to make you laugh,” he said with a shrug.
“Well, mission accomplished,” she said, rising once more to lift the stick and poke at the dwindling flames. “And that's a pretty good cover story.”
“Trust me,” he said, looking up at her. “When I decide to seduce you, you'll know it.”
That made her turn around in a hurry, their eyes meeting in the red glow. Tricia's mouth went dry. His eyes, looking up into hers, were nothing but heat, reflecting the flames in front of them. The heat of the fire licking at her flesh seemed to invert, and she felt warmth burning her from the inside out.
“What are you waiting for?” she managed to croak out, the night suddenly seeming very still and quiet. “Who's to say I don't...”
“I'm waiting until you stop asking me why I want you here,” he said, voice low but almost flat, matter-of-fact. “I'm waiting until you feel like you deserve to be here.”
She couldn't look away, caught in his stare like a deer in the headlights. With his dark hair and beard, he almost seem to fade into the background, only his eyes and the pale pink of his lips remaining. His words did things to her that she couldn't understand, and didn't want to try to understand. They made her feel new.
“Okay,” she finally said, feeling as soft and malleable as her voice. When he decided to seduce her. When he decided to seduce her.
“Put some more wood on and come sit down,” he said, breaking the tension by looking away and nodding at the wood gathered by the side of the fire. “I like having you near me. I like hearing your voice close by.”
“Okay,” she repeated, and bending down she added more wood to the fire, satisfied only when the flames began to catch and lick up the branches. And then she did what he said, and sat beside him, close enough to touch but not touching.
“Tell me about your folks,” Damon said.
“My folks?” Tricia asked, surprised. That was a pretty big leap from the topic at hand. Nothing seemed less seductive, in fact, than a conversation about her parents.
“I want to know you, Tricia,” Damon urged. “Whether or not you trust me saying it, you’re a woman worth getting to know.”
Tricia studied him in the fire’s light. A smile crept across her lips.
“Alright,” she said. “Well, my father was an electrician, he retired…”
11
Ricky read the note on her table, her mouth falling further and further into a frown with each word. She read it once, then again.
I can’t explain this – so I won’t try. Damon invited me along with him on a road trip, and I’m taking it. I should be back in two weeks or so. It feels right. – Tricia.
“What the hell, Trish,” she murmured to herself, fighting down a wave of anxiety. She let the little slip of paper flutter down to the table. Tricia just got there, and now she was off on some impromptu road trip…with Damon?
She pulled out her phone and called Cristov.
“Hey baby, I’m not home yet…is everything alright?”
“You picked up your phone while you’re driving?” Ricky asked, momentarily forgetting why she’d called in her concern for Cristov’s lax regard for personal safety.
“You’re on speakerphone,” he said.
“Is Kennick with you?”
“Sure am,” she heard a male voice respond, then a female voic
e, sounding slightly distant.
“Me too,” Kim said.
“Listen, I just got home, and there’s this note from Tricia on the table. She says she left for a few weeks to go on a road trip with Damon. Do you guys know anything about that?”
The silence on the other end answered her question. She could almost see, in her mind’s eye, Cristov and Kennick exchanging a confused look.
“Uh, no,” Cristov finally said. “We don’t. Where are they…what?”
There was an edge to his question that made Ricky bite her lip. She was, however, selfishly glad that she wasn’t the only one who thought it was beyond weird.
“Doesn’t say where,” she said. “Just says they’ll be back in a few weeks, and that it ‘feels right’, whatever the hell that means.”
“Shit,” she heard someone mutter beneath their breath, but couldn’t figure out which of the men had said it.
“Did you call her?” Kim’s voice came from the backseat again.
“Not yet,” Ricky admitted. “But, I mean, we shouldn’t be worried, right? There’s no reason to be worried? Damon’s with her, she’s with Damon, it’s not like they can get into trouble with each other…”
“Uh,” Cristov said. “No, I guess not. She seemed pretty uneasy at dinner…maybe she just needed to get away.”
“Yeah, I mean, I figured that,” Ricky said.
“You’re all crazy,” Kim barked. “They’re not allowed to just leave without telling anyone. And Damon…”
Her voice trailed off, but they were all thinking the same thing. Damon hadn’t been acting like Damon. Not for a long time now. The man who had always been the knowable constant had changed into something unknowable, and certainly not constant.
“Damon wouldn’t hurt her,” Kennick declared.
“No one thinks he would,” Kim shot back. “But Tricia just got home, and now he’s swept her off for some mystery trip to nowhere? I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”
“Kim, maybe we need to just calm down and put ourselves in Tricia’s shoes,” Ricky said with a sigh, crossing the room to plop down on the couch.